John Barrister

[Imogen Slaughter] The pub is dimly lit, with low-hung lits over the booths and little lighting toward the middle of the main room. It's alright - no one in the centre has been attempting read menus today. The tables have been taking away, the chairs set up in a semi circle. The Fox and Feather tries to bill itself as an authentic British pub; right down to having a regular jam session. The hour is late; the session is breaking up. A redhaired woman lowers a fiddle from it's position against her shoulder, near her throat and bends forward at the waist to place the instrument carefully into the case by her feet. Half of the musicians, eight or so, tonight, have already stood.

Imogen Slaughter does not stand until her instrument is put away. Once it is stowed, she unfolds from her chair, standing with an economy that is almost graceful. She lifts her guitar and her fiddle from the hardwood floor and puts them aside before joining the rest in putting away the chairs at the far wall.

As she passes Princess Wolf, there is a glance - one that is sharp and narrow gazed, a tension to her mouth that speaks to more of knowledge than of a reaction to rage. Then, she looks away, lifting the chair to place it at the top of the stack.

[Thaney] The g(arou) girl had come, informally late, and slipped between a school-teacher named Jonas (young, in his twenties) and an exceptionally strong-willed older woman called Tooth, for reasons none were ever able to ascertain, but had something to do with how uncompromising her opinions, once given, were. What all of that has to do with teeth is anybodies guess, but the name is what she was called by her companion, a mellow-eyed man in his early middle age, who might have been her son in law, who also might have been an aspiring writer, or a journalist.

It would be a lie to say she didn't give Imogen a contemplative, oh, reflective look when she noticed her: flame-haired, pale-skinned, and fianna, fianna, fianna says the blood that marches up and down her backbone. She also doesn't move her chair closer. She also doesn't say anything. She's content to play her guitar, treasured like a fatted calf before it's brought to a golden idol.

And now the session has wound down ("You have a ride home, Jane?" "Hnnhm!") and the musicians are drifting back to their regular lives. ("That sound isn't an answer." "I'm good, Porter.") As Imogen passes Princess, the kinwoman - she's gotta be - gives Princess a look.

The serious-eyed teenager (sixteen, maybe? seventeen? fifteen? no, eighteen - naw, no way eighteen, maybe...) settles another chair - muscles cord - on the stack beside Imogen's, just as the older woman is turning away. She says, "Hey. Uhm. 'Scuse me."

Not get out of my way but may I have your attention and whatever could it be.

[Imogen Slaughter] There is something about purebreeding. It is a look, a stance. It is in the line of her jaw, the straight edge of her nose. It is in the curved shells of her ears, and the blood that flows in the tiny veins there, just beneath the skin. It is in the colour of her skin and the hue of her hair.

It is in the way she stands, the line of her back, the position of her neck. The way her hand lifts as she pushes back hair that has escaped from her clip, tendering back tendrils to tuck them behind her ear as Thaney speaks to her.

All these visuals, and still, if Princess were blind, she would know the breeding and be able to know 'Fianna'. The kinship is there, down in her marrow - where blood calls to blood.

The woman - not a girl, too poised and past that teenage and early twenties stage where such a word could still be applied - turns her head to look at the teenager. An eyebrow arches, copper against pale skin.

"Yes?" In a word, her foreigness is made clear, her accent and tone betraying her unAmerican birthplace.

[Thaney] The moon is waning; still gibbous, but not for much longer, and then the moon will be divided perfectly, cleanly. It's just not something people normally think about. Looking up from the street, well, normal city-dwellers are surprised to see that, hey, it's a full moon tonight. How about that. You know what they say about full moons.

Princess notices full moons and moons that are a little less full than full and moons that are black and invisible and all the other moons in between. She feels them, you see. She's feeling it, tonight, the recession of its strong tug on the part of herself that makes her a monster. The rage. It makes her mellow, behind the serious.

"Who taught you how to play like that? Really fantastic. Back when the blond lady and Tooth were doing that snake-thing, that little embellishment - I don't know what to call it? - that brought in? Changed the whole tone of the thing. It was a lot of fun."

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen steps away from the stacks of chairs - there are still three left and she steps back toward the middle of the room to retrieve one. A glance over her sholulder for the girl. Imogen's eyes are dark - in the dim lighting it is impossible to see that they are blue. Only that they are dark and without light, they are black.

"Thank you," presumably, for the compliment. The slight woman speaks as she lifts the chair, carrying it by a hand on either side of the seats. "S'called 'wrappin' the chord'."

When the redhead had looked at her, that once before they had begun to speak, Thaney could have sworn that Imogen knew what she was. Could have laid her life on it. Now, perhaps it is not so easy. If she knows, she appears to be content to continue the charade.

She's slight - barely over five feet, but the muscles beneath her skin speak of strength - or at least a lack of softness. Definition to her arms as she lifts the chair and puts it on the stack, a sort of easy movement as she turns to face the girl, one that speaks of a comfort in her own skin, an awareness of where her body is, how her joints work.

"No offence," she remarks, off hand, "But yeh're a bit young fer a bar, are yeh not?"

[Thaney] Princess twines a strand of fiery (and false, as false as the paint on a fire-engine, as false as the colors in a sunset in Los Angeles, or in the dirty, polluted air of Mexico, and almost as bright, too!) hair around her index finger. Most of her hair's caught up, understand, in two pig-tails, about level with her ears but closer to the back of her skull. Her eyebrows draw together, slightly. "I don't usually get that," she says, gravely, "from non-Americans. You're British, right?" Beat. "Yeah, I am too young, but the owner said I could stay for the session as long as I don't drink. Or try to." Another beat, and then, her eyebrows draw a little more together. "You aren't a cop, are you? Because if it's illegal, I don't want any trouble for the owner. I just wanted to play, and hear other people play, and not have to know them. You know?"

[Imogen Slaughter] She offers a tight smirk, "Perhaps America is rubbing off on me.

"S'only illegal if they serve yeh alcohol," she says, and steps back from the stack of chairs. Another lingering patron moves in, dragging the last two chairs and stacks them, one after the other.

"So, yeh ha' nothin' t'worry about." A pause, then, "There's another pub, down near Essex Street yeh might try. They're quite inta improvisations," she pushes hair back from her eyes absently. "It's a different crowd than this one, as well."

[Thaney] "Down near Essex?" There's a mild frown in place, but it's a thoughtful frown. Does she know the place? No, she does not know the place. Her eyes tighten around the corners, crinkle, and even in the dim-lit pub it is clear that one of the girl's eyes is paler than the other - the ruin of symmetry. "Thanks. I might check it out. Do you remember what it's called?" Princess looks away from Imogen, who she has been regarding steadily, gaze trailing after some of the musicians. They're going outside, to smoke. The owner is chatting by the bar, nursing something with a lot of hop.

When she looks back, it's to say, "No offense, but - " and Imogen has, perhaps, been around the block long enough to know, know this next before it comes, especially from those who have that answering fianna fianna throb in their blood calls to blood and " - I feel like I should know you. Should I, uhm, know you?"

[Imogen Slaughter] "The Highlander," she offers after a beat of thought - no frown, no real change in expression, only a hitch in the flow of the conversation where presumably she has stopped to consider.

Should I - know you?

The doctor's expression at the best of times is reserved - her emotions are revealed in the smallest of motions; at the corner of her eyes, at the edge of her mouth. Here, the edge of her mouth tightens a fraction, the space between her eyebrows draws minutely in, deepening a crease.

Her awareness expands to the room around them, glancing at the patrons, the bartender, the departing musicians. Then, tightens again as she turns her attention back to Princess.

"Yer kind says tha' I remind them o' someone," she says neutrally. "I cannot tell, myself."

[Thaney] The Highlander, Imogen says, and Princess nods once, the same way musicians - not classically trained musicians, anyway - will sometimes bob their heads to keep the beat. Just a way to mark the memory. Understand, the girl is a creature of thought, a creature of memory, and her wide, clear eyes (one clear, one full of smoke) are steady, now they've returned, and seeing, too.

She just met Imogen, doesn't even know her name, but she recognizes signs, even if they are in an unfamiliar language. Yer kind, Imogen says, and Princess says, "You do remind me of someone. Well, not someone, exactly. It's hard to say."

"What's your name?"

[Imogen Slaughter] "He would ha' died long before you were born." She will never understand how it worked - how a Garou could look at her and feel her blood. Find something compelling in her, not because of herself, but because of something she has no control over. Her ancestry - the heroes of her blood.

She has over time, however, come to accept it. There is so much incontrovertible truth, after all.

"Imogen," she says and after a beat adds her last name, as if it made a difference, "Slaughter."

[John Barrister] "It's an open-mic night," John explains, paralleling the enormous gas-guzzling Chevy Silverado with no small amount of skill. Anything less and the long-bed, full-cab, double-rear-axle monstrosity would easily roll over some poor little civic. Crunch, speed bump. "Amateurs come by and play. Some are terrible. Others are pretty good. They're usually not bad at this place."

The handbrake ratchets into place and he kills the ignition, reaching into the rear seat to grab a sheaf of flyers. "Got your banjo? I can't remember when this one ends, but if they're finished the pub two doors down has open mic until 1am."

[Skadi] "I thank I'm jes' gon' watch - " the banjo is in the extended cab, the truck's fucking back seat, in a battered old case with a bullet hole near the neck, papered over by a faded unicorn sticker beneath a faded 38 Special patch, the stiff kind folks once ironed onto their jean jackets, demonstrating loyalty to one brand of southern rock, or another brand of fiery-fingered heavy metal. The black case hides the bloodstains it has absorded over the years, the beer and the whiskey, the cheap, roadside food - the iced tea. Hell, it's a miracle case. " - first time 'round. Yannow?"

She frowns at him; her reflection in the rearview mirror, and the kinsman's, then back over her shoulder at the banjo case. "Ain't never played too much fer other folks, see, not in a real long time. Mostly jes' noodled around with tha pack. Kin give ya'a hand with them flyers, though."

[Thaney] And silence.

The teenager is quiet; there is a reaction. The eyebrows prick, again, and one corner of her mouth pulls down. Her eyelashes, which are actually long, sweep across her cheekbones. There isn't a sly bone in her body. Silence, and then, "Oh."

And, in case it wasn't obvious, she says, "I've heard about you. I mean," and here, a frown directed at herself, "I heard about you from Tristan. He said you were bad ass. You're with - "

Another pause. Then Princess inhales, small and quiet, and the corner of her mouth curves upward. "Do you know Evan, too? Kind of orange-y hair?"

[John Barrister] "Thanks," he says, collecting a big handful of flyers -- and entire packet of Xerox paper Kinkoed into flyers for some struggling little music shop somewhere or other. WE SPECIALIZE IN STRING INSTRUMENTS! it reads, and, INSTRUMENTS - STRINGS - SHEET MUSIC - ACCESSORIES. The bottom is cut into piano keys, each printed with a phone number and a web address.

"I think I'll just leave them by the door though," he adds, pushing his door open and sliding out. The Silverado is high off the ground, but Barrister's frame is long and he bridges the gap easily. The door shuts behind him. He calls over the bed, "I don't like to push it on people and management doesn't like their clientele harassed. It's sort of a classy joint, this one. The Green Leprechaun down the street is a little rowdier." He's up on the curb now, buttoning his fine wool coat with one hand; the fine wool coat that always, despite his best attempts, made him look a bit like he was playing dress-up.

[Imogen Slaughter] "Bad ass," spoken in a british voice, there is a sort of handling of the word that makes it foreign. It is not a phrase Imogen would ever use - not in a hundred years, and Thaney can almost hear the quotes around it. Unlike the compliment of her music, this, which is a compliment in the Garou world, is received with almost a reluctant mirthlessness. The twist of her mouth might almost be a grimace, if it were more fully formed.

A half finished sentence is ignored. It is dismissed with a misplaced blink, a brief tightening of her jaw. It is gone quickly.

"I know Evan," she says. "Yeh want a message passed?"

[Skadi] "Classy place, huh?" a distinct, sideslanting glance, as she hits the ground, back at Barrister as he circles the truck. Skadi turns to shut the door behind her with more force than was strictly necessary, an entirely unconscious habit after a couple years spent slamming Betsy's doors hard enough to make 'em shut tight; or, sometimes - hard enough to get her point across. The doors latch; maybe the remote chirrups as the kin hits LOCK. Her face swims in the passenger's window as she stands on the sidewalk, and she glances back, surreptitiously checking out her reflection. The edge of a grin, long-familiar - she looks just like her mother - that's what folks say, that's what they've always said, from the photographs. " - ya thank they're gon' let me in?"

There's nothing fine about her clothing. The jeans are from Wal-Mart. So, too, is the pale pink halter - empire waisted and backless. The suede blazer - stylized, western in its details, the broad flare of the collar and hem, the visible contrast stitching - from an end-of-the-season sale at some nameless Chicago store. Hands in the front pockets of her jeans, just to the first knuckle, Skadi waits until Barrister has gained the sidewalk, then falls into step beside him. "Leprachauns are fuckin' rowdy, so that don't surprise me none. Which one d'ya like best?"

[Thaney] Bad ass, with almost audible quotations; Princess's response is, of course, a listening quiet, an even-handed nod. Makes her seem older, almost; makes her seem younger, almost. She slides both hands into the pockets of her jeans, which look as though they could probably use a wash or three, although they're recently cleaned, and the jeans slide a couple inches down the slope of her hip. Belt be damned. She curls her fingers, and hitches them back up. "No," she answers, and this time the hesitation before she speaks doesn't quite evolve into a silence. "I just wanted to know he was still alive. And well. I mean, as far as you know?"

[Imogen Slaughter] "Last I checked," her answer is careless. Then, a pause. It cannot be described as a softening, but it can at least be described as an extrapolation. "He was fine as o' yesterday."

Which was not, precisely, the last time she'd seen him.

[John Barrister] John doesn't give her an empty reassurance. He looks at her thoughtfully, and then nods. "Yeah. Places like this only enforce the dress code for the men, usually." A lopsided grin. "To maintain a male:female ratio that gives us the impression of having half a chance."

He tucks the sheaf under his left arm, opening the door with his right -- a thoughtless sort of chivalry. "Neither," he replies, rumbly. "I'd rather stay in with a good book."

[Thaney] "Cool," she says, with something of a smile, different from the faint motion of her mouth earlier, the curve. It doesn't have a greater percentage of sincerity, per se, but it does actually mean more, a little hook of the almost but not quite luminous. And quiet. And muted. And now gone, thank you.

She's very American. All American. Entirely American, is Princess. Doesn't particularly hide it. Says, because she's inquisitive, and she doesn't really want the conversation to end on that note, doesn't want Imogen to tell Evan that she, Princess (hey, you didn't give her a name, stupid), asks about him, for reasons of her own. Good reasons, too. Says, because, all of that -

"Do you play any other instruments?"

[Skadi] "Huh - " A bank of warm, breathable air as the door opens; the low murmur of conversations, the good, solid clink of glasses against each other, or against warm wood. The light has a different quality inside; and the shadows, the shadows as well. The pair bring a burst of chill with them, the suggestion of rain on the wind to compete with the lively melange of perfume, sweat, and alcohol inside. The unsubtle aura of her rage crackles around her, sunthing, furious and hot and thoughtless.

Skadi ducks around Barrister, gives him a sly, upslanting look - mouth crooked at the edges, not precisely a grin. " - know what I'd rather be fuckin' doin'? Fish - "

- but no. The flash of red hair, authentic and bottled, near the bar. "Fuckin' hell. S'Thaney 'n Silence's Fiann," so she announces, an elbow to Barrister's ribs as he deposits the fliers. "Hey - HEY!" - real loud, right over whatever music the bar is piping in, in the lull after (or between, or something) performances, that's how Skadi announces herself, waving, the thick braid swinging like a pendulum down her spine before she takes off, rage and intent clearing a rather direct path to the pair of musicians.

[Imogen Slaughter] "Bit o' piano," she answers, "Not-" whatever her sentence was, it is incomplete - Imogen's attention is drawn by Skadi's shout. Her weight shifts and she does not look over her shoulder toward her, but half turns toward the blonde Modi, eating the ground between them with every stride.

The conversation is thrown off its rails.

[John Barrister] "You fish too?" Barrister brightens. "There's decent fishing to be had in Tekakwitha -- oof," elbowed: his side feels like a slab of prime beef. He sets the stack of fliers down on the coatcheck girl's booth, takes one off the top and pins it to the much-stabbed corkboard beside it. Heads turn toward Skadi. John takes the time to take his coat off and hand it to the girl for the highway-robbery price of $5 an item. His sweater underneath is dark green, the weave thin but heavy enough to drape. He turns sideways to squeeze through a gauntlet of people Skadi only needed to walk through. She was leaner; she was ragier.

As usual, he lifts his hand in a sort of wave at Thaney. "You just keep turning up, don't you," he says to the girl. The smile is genuine. The corners of his eyes crinkle. "You left your hair scrunchie in my truck," he adds, and then looks at Imogen with the sort of expectant friendliness of someone meeting a friend-of-a-friend. "Hi."

[Thaney] She listens.

And then -
Hey - HEY -
And -

The redheads both turn, each in their distinctive this is the way my body works way, Imogen shifting her weight completely, Princess just turning her head, while otherwise she remains quite still. Of course her serious expression doesn't waver, although there's something pleased to see both members of the Get of Fenris (alive, and well) brood, and she lifts a hand to wave back at J.B.

"Hi, Skadi," she says, once Little Miss Swamp Queen in her Little Missed In That Pink Halter Top is near enough. She doesn't lift her voice, but she still projects. Of course. Then, for J.B., the spark of a smile, "Think you're the one following me." The place has gotten crowded, again, and Princess notices this with a frown, clouds her eyes, pulls them to where her guitar is stashed. It's okay, though, and nobody seems to have mollested, insulted, made inappropriate overtures to and/or otherwise come in contact with it.

[Skadi] Skadi looks younger. Not young - but, younger. Maybe her rage is less tonight; spent somewhere in some hunt. Maybe she's yet to look at the moon. Maybe it's the lighting in the place - all soft, warmed by the woods meant to emulate the genuine British article. Maybe it's the company: there's that, too. She's bright; it's hard to look away. The golden hair, the vivid eyes, the lean cut of her figure - the rage, that too, and for Thaney, if no one else, the Get of Fenris pure breed - the nordic angle of her face, the sharp cut of her jaw. What's bred in the bone.

The path behind her opens and closes and shifts again. Skadi sidles up to the bar, and to Imogen and Thaney beside the bar with a wide grin. "This here's John Barrister, Doc. An' it's Doctor Slaughter. Ain't like a pediatrician, 'r nothin', though. Cuts up fuckin' dead folks." Near automatically, Skadi's eyes flicker to Imogen's stomach, and back again. The creature hooks a barstool - (if someone was sitting there - she found something more interesting and enjoyable across the room real quick) - with the toe of her pink, rhinestone covered cowboy boot and pulls it up beside Thaney, scraping it across the worn wood boards. A glance over her shoulder suggests that the bartender is more interested in polishing his highball glasses than in serving her; her brow draws close, but she struggles to shove it off.

Then, " - done found Loki, too, by the by." - for Thaney.

[John Barrister] "Hi," becomes "Hi, nice to meet you." Some people have a gift of saying it like they mean it. John doesn't, really, but John has something a little better: he does mean it. If only because Doctor Slaughter is the only person he's met in their small, strange circle that's topped twenty-five. "A doctor, huh. My youngest sister is studying to be a nurse." Cuts up fuckin' dead folks, Skadi continues, cheerily enough, and Barrister doesn't quite contain a surprised blink. "Oh -- well." Awkward. "Well, at least you aren't squeamish about it." Recovery. He sticks his hand out. It's big and hairy. John, in general, is big and hairy, thick through the chest and heavy in the shoulder. No one would believe he shaved twice a day, but it was the truth.

"I'm going to get a drink," he adds. "Should I bring you something back?" A glance around includes everyone in the 'you'.

[Imogen Slaughter] The kin's stomach is flat beneath the fall of her light cotton shirt. Another disappointment for the female Modi. If she notices the glance, or the question (criticsm) it implies, she affects not to notice as she picks up her guitar in one hand, the fiddle in the other. The glance toward Barrister is brief, a snap shot that takes much of him in, "A pleasure," she says, without giving much care to the meaning of her words.

He offers his hand, and there's a glance down at it before she lays her fiddle case aside and takes his hand to shake it. Her grip is firm and cool, the tips of her fingers calloused. "No," she agrees, "I'm not very squeamish." Her accent is worth noting - the clipped sounds, the burrs. She is more British than the pub is and can likely point out all its flaws.

As his gaze includes her, Imogen shakes her head - she does not want anything to drink, running a hand over her flame hued hair.

[Skadi] "Shot'a Jack 'n a beer. Anythang what ain't watered down horse piss. 'n git - " a flicker toward Thaney, beside her. Familiar: unfamiliar. Skadi leans back, both elbows resting on the bar, the lines of the blazer she always wears, of late, falling away from her torso and hips, hanging down behind the seat of the backless barstool. "Thaney a fuckin' Shirley Temple. Ain't that whatcha want - "

[Thaney] ( blah. chat ate my post THREE TIMES IN A ROW. one sec. )

[Thaney] - done found Loki, too, by the by. -

There. There it is, again; that brief, muted smile that nonetheless conceals some kind of radiance. It's almost visible, a tantalizing beneath-the-surface gleam. "Good," she says, and is content to be quiet. Quiet, while Skadi slings herself next to the Fianna; quiet, while Imogen and J.B. are made better acquainted. She's about to answer him, too, to politely demure, say, naw, I'm legal tonight, but Skadi answers for her first. And " - a Shirley Temple? - " she flushes, hotly, torn between being good and legal and saying I can drink you and your ancestors under the table, Get! Let's go!

- good and legal wins the day, though. She says, "No. Just some olives. Please."

[Thaney] And, gaze drawn back to Imogen, picking up her violin-case, her guitar-case, "Are you going home?"

[John Barrister] Jack. A beer. And a Shirley Temple. Barrister, who gave Thaney a beer the day they met, is a little doubtful. Thaney asks for olives. He laughs under his breath and turns. His wide back fords through the crowd. The blood of Fenris gives him a height advantage, a weight advantage, and a muscle-to-fat-ratio advantage, but it does not give him the rage that would allow even a girl as slight as Thaney to back everyone away at arm's length if she so much as glared.

He's gone for several minutes. When Barrister comes back, he has four beers in one hand, their necks caught skillfully between his blunt fingers. Some Boston microbrewery or other, some rich golden ale. He hands one to Skadi, keeps one for himself. The rest are set as open offers or temptations on the little round bar table they've clustered around: two garou, two kin, and a guitar.

Also: a small glass of olives, and a shot of mellow amber whiskey. The gold wedding band on his left hand glints in the dim light. Imogen -- hairtouching or no -- is out of luck. However, the redhaired woman's double-teaming catches his attention. He nods at the smaller case: "Is that a violin," and steals an olive from Thaney, "or a fiddle?"

The difference: the shape of the bridge, the attitude of the playing, and whether or not one sues when someone else spills a beer on it.

[Imogen Slaughter] "s'a fiddle," she answers, reaching over to pick it up again from where she had laid it briefly to shake Barrister's hand.

A glance toward Thaney, an incline of her head, "Yes, I am." The answers to both questions are bare bones. They say nothing more than she needs.

"Ha' a good night," this, directed to no one in particular as she steps back and takes her leave.

[John Barrister] It's a fiddle, "Bah. Philis--"
Yes, she is leaving. "Oh, well--"
Have a good night.

"--goodnight," he echoes, and forgets to push his flyers. Imogen departs. In her wake, Barrister raises his eyebrows at Thaney, at Skadi: was it something he said?

[Skadi] "Would'a put my Jack in yer Shirley Temple - " Skadi is announcing to Thaney, out of the side of her mouth as Barrister returns with drinks all around. Instead of putting her Jack anywhere, she tips the mouth of the shotglass between her thumb and pointed finger, swirling the liquid to watch the light reflecting in the glass; to watch her face htere, distorted and distressed by the liquid, the twin globes of shadow/light cast on the bottle of the glass, the illusion of depth - something. Or just - offering up some sort of private toast. Yeah, that: a private toast, silent and internal, the gleam of her eyes and the gleam of the liquid. She tips it back, tips her whole head back, long braid swinging rapidly against the line of her spine, down against the chrome curve of the barstool, swallows it all, swallows hard against the burn of the liquor in the back of her throat.

The modi surfaces, sets the shot glass carefully on the table, and fixes her intent gaze on some midpoint in Imogen's departing back. "Later, doc." - over the heads of a few patrons, who have already sifted between the trio and the kinswoman. A glance, sidelong, at Barrister; then leans forward against the table, the bar, whatever, while sitting back on the stool, squaring her body, centering her hips and weight over it.

"Naw," a verbal response to the unspoken question is what she offers, as she grabs the neck of the microbrew and drags it across the wood, frowning speculatively through the mouth of the bottle before eyeing the label. Hrmm. "S'probably got a body ta go cut up, 'r somethan."

[John Barrister] "Oh, well." A shrug; he lets it roll off his back. And, "It won't turn you into a bleeding-heart liberal," Barrister says, amused, to Skadi's eyeing of the label and the amber fluid inside. "One bottle won't, anyway." A barstool grates across the floor. He plants it under himself and slides up on it, leaning his elbows on the small table, his shoulders like two bowling balls when he hunkers over like this.

[Thaney] "Good night," Princess says, to Imogen, unsure of what to call her: Imogen or Dr. Slaughter. And whatever latent Fianna pride (in their [non]ability to hold their cups) Skadi had pricked, why, Princess is an even-keeled creature in most respects, and it dissipates entirely, replaced by a certain abashment, at the side-mouthed assurance; she nods, just very slightly, and says, "Don't want the owner to get in trouble. He's letting me in on sufferance." And then she eats the olives, pleased by their presence in a whole little glass, just like a child would: she puts them on the tips of her fingers, and then squeezes her tongue through the end, sucks them off - almost delicately.

While she's loading up another hand, she says, "She plays really well. I wish I'd learned how to fiddle."

[Imogen Slaughter] (Thanks for the RP, guys! *runs for bed*)

[Skadi] "Huh. How many then?" - she hasn't stopped eyeing the beer, the art-encrusted label, some picture of a failing sky, tall ships with stylized lines around them, the deliberately folksy font used to display the brewery's name. She picks it up, holding it neatly, carefully cinched, palm around the bottle's long neck, fingers - and, here. Princess speaks; and Skadi stops eyeing the beer long enough to eye the olives tipping the ends of the Fianna's fingers, her hand spread out, the rounded green digits like nothing so much as a mildly dowdy tree frog.

"I mean, two 'r three 'r eight. Gotta know, 'cuz I ain't turnin' inna no bleeding heart, no matter how fuckin' good tha beer is." Alert then, straightening as Imogen disappears into the crowd, then reappears at the door. Skadi watches the final few feet of her progress until she does indeed disappear, the last sight of her hair framed against the darkness outside. The bottle returns to the tabletop with a nice, solid thunk, all glass on wood. "Kin still learn, yannow." Thinking, thoughful, " - tha fiddle. Maybe ask 'er ta teach ya." - inspiring the immediate, still faint-frowning, a furrow between her brows. "I thank her'n Kemp used ta be real close."

[John Barrister] "Well, you've got your guitar," Barrister observes, fitting the bottle to his mouth. "And Skadi's got her banjo. I don't play anything at all." A wry grin, to Skadi -- "Three. Maybe four, if you leave a lot of dregs." He holds up his fingers, an inch apart or so, squinting.

And drops that hand, folds it into the crook of his elbow, folds his forearms over the table. There's a sort of cozy languor spreading through his limbs: a little bit of booze, some nice company, a nice woodsy pub, comfortable silences in the conversation. He looks up, "Kemp? Really?" He can't see that; the Rotagar that had offered/threatened to unpack for him while he was out, the redhead that had slammed the doors on casual conversation once, twice, thrice, and then walked out the door. The thought puts a smile on his face.

[Thaney] Language, again. Princess enjoys language, loves language and something Skadi says causes her attention to become steadfast. There's more weight to the attention, for an instant; then the pressure lifts. She says, after sucking the olive off of her pinky finger and her ring finger, after swallowing them, "Maybe." But she's withdrawn, when she says it, and cautious. "She probably has more patience than Kendra does. But, Skadi, have you ever heard somebody learning how to play the fiddle play the fiddle - ?"

[Skadi] "Yep." - she says to Kemp? And "Yep." - she says to really, nodding her head in time with her own answers, confirming them in case he didn't catch - or believe - the verbal agreement, playing the part of her own Greek chorus. Something like that. "Knowed 'em since he was a kid, she has." Pause; drink. Grin, too - an abstracted, distant sort of grin, which isn't happy, so much as it is aware - briefly livewire, painfully aware. Skadi shakes her head. The heavy braid against the suede coat, her back bare beneath it, against the warm, soft lining. She's aware of both: braid and coat, and the hard edge of the table beneath her forearms. The circle of metal into which she has hooked her toes. And - and -

"And I don't really have my banjo." The creature looks up, shooting an oddly wry glance from Thaney to Barrister and back again, chasing away the shape of that grin from her compelling features, her generous mouth. "I ain't no kinda musician like Thaney. I done heard her song; s'fuckin' poetry, yannow? I know poetry when I fuckin' hear it." The beer is solid in her hand, and slick - sweating.

But, Skadi, have you ever heard somebody learning to play the fiddle play the fiddle - ?

"You ever heard me play tha fuckin' banjo?" It's direct enough to be a almost-a-challenge.

[Sandra Davenport] (ooc: Open scene?)

[Thaney] ( Yup, s'far as I'm aware. )

[Skadi] (Indeed!)

[Sandra Davenport] (OOC: then, places please?)

[John Barrister] (yar)

[Thaney] ( The Fox and the Feather, a "British" pub, 'round a bar-table by the bar )

[Sandra Davenport] (ooc: thank you!)

[John Barrister] He's still a kid. The words are right there, tip of the tongue, tipping the bottle, tipsy, a long swallow. The words are swallowed, because Thaney's a kid, too, and so is Skadi, and so is everyone, and in the eyes of the venerated old elders of the tribe, so is John. Meanwhile, in the eyes of Gaia, or whatever it is they were all fighting for, none of them were children. They were all soldiers, ready to die.

Barrister is quiet, listening to the exchange, engaged, simply choosing not to speak. Silence suits him as well as his easy slow conversation does. It fits him. He leans back -- the bar, the wall, something -- and draws his heels up on the higher rung of the barstool, balancing the beer bottle in his palms, on his lap.

[Sandra Davenport] Unnoticed by many, she was dragged to the pub earlier in the evening by her classmates. Fortunately, there are dark corners where one can hide for most of a night and not be bothered, even though the festivities of the Fifth of May swirled in a constant ebb and flow. (You don't mind, Sandy, do you? Of course you don't. See you Monday!) Now, most are moved on to other places, and the Pub has calmed down.

Even still, it is easy to miss her. Until now - if anyone happens to look her way that is. She stands and pushes from the table with a sigh. The book she was reading is closed, and tucked into her purse which she drapes over her shoulder to fall against opposite hip. She leans back with her hands against her lower back, stretching with a spine popping lean. She can tell whoever asks that yes, she'd gone out Saturday night. She'll just neglect to mention she sat in the corner, drinking water, and reading a book.

Straightening again, she pushes up her glasses, and heads across the pub toward the restroom. She is not a pretty girl, Sandra, but she does attract some notice usually by some. It is the blood of Nordic Heroes in her veins, written across her soul.

[Thaney] s'fuckin' poetry, yannow?

Princess, well, she doesn't blush - not quite. But her ears go a little bit pinker, and her nose goes a little bit paler, and her freckles are a little more evident, and she tips the glass of olives (well, there are only two left) toward Skadi, a silent ya want?

Then she says, serious, "Thank you. And," her tone - well, it doesn't lighten, there's not a big enough change to say that, but it does shift to something less grave, "nope. Not yet. Uhm. Maybe you can play your banjo, I'll borrow someone's fiddle, and we can practice at Jaybee's place."

It's reeeeally hard to tell how serious she is/isn't. She slants a sidelong glance, toward the Fenrir kin, with his bowling ball shoulders.

[John Barrister] "Nn-nn." His attention had wandered: the hip, intellectual, hybrid-driving, indie-label-listening crowd; the earth-tones of their clothes; the fine-boned, fashionably bespectacled women and their designer drinks and their microbrewery beers. It pulls back to the two Garou, the girl just a shade too young for this place, the other girl-woman many shades too wild, too bright. Skadi's beauty is a savage, sharp thing, the fox in the henhouse, the tiger and not the lady. "I don't think so." He finishes his beer and, since neither Imogen nor Thaney have helped themselves, helps himself to one of the two bottles on the table. "I treasure my hearing."

[Skadi] "Kemp kin play tha cowbell." - Skadi offers immediate and very sober agreement, just before she drains her beer all at a go, right dow to the dregs and past them, until you could see daylight through the round patter of the bottle's base; no - not daylight, but instead an unobstructed and untainted and untinted view of the can lights cleverly sunk into the ceiling and directed to illuminate everything with that warm wood glow, the light that makes everyone's skin look healthier and better, warming, washed with soft - never harsh - shadows.

Or maybe that is the dim, golden glow of the alcohol uncoiling through her limbs from someplace that seems like her stomach - but, no. Gut. Seat of instinct and courage, right - no guts, no glory. All that nameless viscera inside. "Ya play host an' make us cookies 'n milk." She pauses, bends lower - just pointing before she grabs the second remaining bear, tucking three fingers around it. " - 'R wings 'n beer, I'll buy ya some earplugs. Git 'em personalized an' shit. What's that called? Mono-fuckin' grammed."

- her eyes touch on Thaney, then swing around. Barrister. His eyes as he looks back at them; the bristle of beard already growing back, dark beneath his skin; - and beyond his hunkered shoulders, bowling balls, boulders, a direct line to Sandra. Skadi blinks once, but then she's following the girl's path through the play, eyes bright, attention narrowed - coruscating, those eyes, heart-of-flame blue in this indirect light, staring, hard.

[Thaney] "Bruin probably wouldn't like it," she says. "Do they make dog-shaped ear-plugs?"

There's something akin to wistfulness in the gray-eyed, youthful-skinned fianna's eyes as she watches Skadi drain her beer, all at a go, or maybe it's just something - something else. Something quiet, something private, something genetic...

Still, her eyes crinkle around the corners, convey a smile without an actual smile needing to be present. Skadi goes still; Skadi goes intense, goes hot, stares at something. So Princess looks, too, and notes Sandra - the smell of her, if that's what you want to call it, the loose coil of something, same as J.B. has, which says, Hi. My name is ______, Get of Fenris.

"You know her?" she says.

[John Barrister] Barrister only laughs at that, quietly, and then both women -- both Garou -- get that look in their eyes, that alertness in their bodies, that je ne sais quoi that says they see something John doesn't, and can't see. He looks anyway: over his hunkered shoulder, in the general direction they look. He doesn't even know what they're looking at, but it wasn't a seven-eyed monster, and that was enough for him. John turns back, starting in on his second beer.

[Sandra Davenport] There's a feeling that you get when someone stares at you. It causes the small hairs at the back of the neck to rise, a tingle in your gut that something isn't quite right, and it leads to the turn of head, the sweep of dark eyes in effort to find the heat burning into the skin. It's a feeling that Sandra has felt before, and will feel again. Quickly, as a second pair of eyes join the first.

Sandra is, as has been noted, not a pretty girl. She wears no makeup, her hair is not styled, and while many of the patrols were glasses for show, hers are purely for actual use. She's practically blind without them. She's not thin, nor is she fat - she's more curves then most, and they are not accentuated with lovely clothing, but rather hidden under jeans and a sweater - dowdy almost.

She swallows, and fingers push up her glasses along her nose as she watches those that watch her and debates just turning and heading out the door and home instead of simply to wash up as she was going to...

[Skadi] "I'll brang Bruin a steak. 'N he won't care what kinda racket we throw up - " Skadi replies passingly, flashing a grin toward Thaney that has the edge of a smirk, but not the fullness. Not the meanness, maybe, not the glinted set of her hot blue gaze. In her feral forms, the eyes go pale - winter's dawn, something like it, the edge of the horizon bathed in a delicate, internal blue as the sun lights the sky. Now, they're something else, found beneath the earth, polished to a deep and abiding gleam, framed by long, pale lashed, defined by high, pale brows.

"Naw." Skadi replies, low to Princess, direct from the corner of her mouth, around the mouth of her beer bottle. "Ain't seen her afore." Sandra looks up; Skadi drops the beer back to the table, her fingers loosely arrayed around it, and crooks her index finger at the girl. C'mere - mouthed, then, to clarify - yeah you.

"Kin - " she clarifies, not for Thaney but for Barrister. " - 'r true, maybe. Our blood." A glance at the Fianna girl, philodox, speculative. " - kin ya read which?"

[John Barrister] Another glance over his shoulder. Barrister is easily the most massive of the three here, thoroughly dwarfing the women but never quite eclipsing them. His back is to the door, and to Sandra, hunched over, his thin sweater pulled thinner across his shoulders. He dresses well, but somehow is not welldressed; he lacks some panache, some element of flair. His eye is dark as he studies the newcomer.

"I doubt she's true," he murmurs, quiet, the corners of his mouth quirking. "You have a 'look'. You stand out." Kindness prevents him from saying it: Sandra does not stand out. To him, anyway, deaf and blind to breeding. To him, and to the humans in this joint, Sandra simply fades into the background -- a wallflower, plain.

[Thaney] The girl looks up; meets their eyes, watches back; and the Fianna (not included in the our, no, no) rests her elbow on the table, and her chin on her fist. Can you read which? Skadi asks, and she gives a brief shake of her head. No.

[Sandra Davenport] C'mere is mouthed, and there's no 'who me' that follows, but more of a 'ohshit' instead. She looks around, takes a breath, and then shifts direction and heads toward the table. She wraps her arms tight around her abdomen as her shoulders hunch slightly. It's a protective gesture, really, and reflexive.

She doesn't take long to arrive, one arm unfolding to lift and push her glasses up, then to tuck her hair behind her ear before it returns. This close, there's a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose that can be seen, and eyes of a lighter hue then suggested by distance. Blue, perhaps, though dark and no where near the vibrancy of Skadi's.

And John would be correct. Sandra does not stand out. Anywhere. Ever. She doesn't say anything when she arrives. She just clears her throat, and waits.

[John Barrister] As she approaches, John shifts his seat to the side, opening their circle to give Sandra room. There's a simple, common decency in Barrister. The sort of thing that makes him open the circle; the sort of thing that makes him smile in greeting. The sort of thing that makes him get up and go to the bar to refresh their drinks.

[Skadi] "Huh." - that and a quick sweep of her eyes, away from Sandra, to Barrister and back again. You stand out. - and he means not her, but all of them; she gets that, it clicks through like a combination lock. She knows that already beneath it, sometimes - except, no - but, "Huh." Her chin rises; the head cants at a forty degree angle, lashes lowering as if she were a coy thing - but that's a trick of the light, that, the way the shadows play across her face, and nothing true - just long enough to catch Thaney's gesture.

"Hey - " to Sandra, as she approaches. Skadi smiles; which is to say - she shows her teeth, white between her pink-painted lips. It comes off feral, which isn't what she meant by the gesture, but greeting strangers is generally outside the modi's job description, while kill things is pretty much standard. There's Sandra, plain as an unpolished whistle. And there's Skadi - vivid, intense, lovely enough to be a model, some all-American catalog. J. Crew, with the added distinctions of feral confidence, or rage. "yannow why I asked ya ta come over here?"

Subtly, thy name is not Skadi.

[Skadi] (Well, something like that you don't want to misspell. It's like that quite from Never, about how he's a loin amongst his pride.)

[Thaney] "Hi," Thaney says, and her voice is clear, and her voice is quiet, and beside Skadi she is the most soothing presence ever, as far as intensity goes, as far as gut-instinct runawaynow goes, and J.B. is followed by a plaintive request for chili cheese fries or nachos or food of some sort.

[Thaney] (Which was hilarious. Heh.)

[Sandra Davenport] John opens the circle, and she looks up at him briefly, through dusky lashes, before her gaze falls again. He stands and she dips a shoulder to pull herself away a little so that he can pass. Not that he was going to brush against her anyway, it is another of a long line of fade moves, this one not a cringe, but one that obviously could be drawn into one in a different situation.

Like being this close to a Modi with a feral smile that isn't necessarily meant to be threatening, but with the prickle of rage that drags over skin, a tinge of the familiar. The question brings a little self-depreciating smile that doesn't quite make it to her eyes, eyes that barely meet Skadi's before skittering away again. "Yessum. Leastwise, I can guess. Only reason I'm usually called over anyplace."

Her voice is soft - the strain to hear it kind of soft, and naturally. Thaney's soothing hi gets a glance, and a glimpse of that little not quite smile. "Hey."

[Skadi] Sandra can guess. Skadi nods to that; it seems right. She knows, she can guess. That's enough, thank goodness, for the modi to nod, agreeing with either Sandra's self-assessment, or her assessment of Skadi and her company, or with her own self, about the blood she could scent and sense and feel. Sandra goes skittish; she looks away, she stands and takes up space, but seems narrow somewhere, drawn in rather than outward.

"Well, we all is i tha same- what, fuckin' club, so it's safe'n shit. Ya got a name? Family in these parts?"

The accent is deep fried southern redeck; hillfolk, some places. Swampfolk, otherplace. Plainfolk, others - not the delicate, distinct voice of privilege and Savannah and Vassar, this.

[Thaney] ( Me too, actually. (was gonna head out nextish post!) )

[John Barrister] (errk. i hate to do this, but -- i'm about to crash too. i wanna get my schedule on course for monday!)

[Sandra Davenport] She tucks her hair behind her ear again, before the hand falls to fold around the other once more. She doesn't think twice about answer. Never does, when faced with this much... club membership in the same space, sucking the breath from her lungs with the burning tinge of rage across skin. "Sandra Davenport, ma'am. I met a.. distant cousin once, but I haven't seen him since." a self-depreciating grin, brief but there. "I don't get out much. His name was... something.. something that started with K.. Kemp. That was it."

[Sandra Davenport] (ooc: me too, actually. So closing up soon is fine.)

[John Barrister] When John comes back, it's with a fresh round of beers and chili fries in a to-go box. "They're kicking us out," he announces, handing the latter to Thaney. "Seems like 5:30am is closing time."

[Thaney] The girl is one of those naturally serious things, Sandra can see, when she glances over; when she introduces herself, Skadi's gracious request, something like a shutter pulls down. Her face goes blank, for a moment. Then she straightens, bending under the table to get her guitar, sling the case over her arm. Kemp, Sandra says, so it must be okay. "Hey, I'm gonna hit the road," she says, to the daughter of the Full Moon, daughter of kill things now. Which is when J.B. returns, with the dire news. She nods - that's all - and says, "Ta, Sandra, Jaybee." And - just heads off, ahead of the groaning just one more crowd, eel-smooth.

[Skadi] "I know 'em - " Skadi says, half rising, pulling a napkin and a stub of a pencil from the center console on the table, remnants, maybe, of the evening's betting on the derby, stuck down amongst the napkins. The woman scrawls a phone number (area code: Not From Around Here) onto the napkin which pulls and tears with the blunt graphite, but there it is. "Fuckin' live with 'im. S'my number, Sandra Davenport. Gimme a call, ya wanna talk. I'll send him out ta find ya. Need ta git him out and about."

...and hook him up with someone other than a fuckin' crazy ass commie Shadow Lord plotting against -

- oh, well, that bit, that's all implied in the feral grin Skadi offers Sandra, along with the napkin with her number on it, or maybe it's just there churing through her head, all of a piece, the complicated knot of it. The feral grin remains in place; she tips it up to Barrister, takes one of the "to-go" beers meant to soothe the angry customer and slides off the barstool, boots resonant as they hit the hardwood floor. Skadi rucks back o the hard-used heels of her pink cowboy boots and tips Sandra a farewell as if she were tipping an imaginary hat, then circles the table and follows Thaney's path through the straggles left at this late our. "I'm'a come by - " she calls out to the Fianna, behind her, shouting, and people look, they turn to look. Some look away, of course; ad some can't. That's the way of things: [i]spectacle " - tamarraw 'r tha next fuckin' day."

And that's it,there's a night out there. A world beyond.

[John Barrister] (thanks for the play, all!)

[Sandra Davenport] She blinks, and takes the number automatically. Lower lip is pulled between her teeth as she glances at it, then the quickly dispersing party. She doesn't have anything to add - which is good as they have all gone.

"Huh." She says, to herself, and shoves the number into her pocket, before finding her own way out, and home.